Cicadas
by saltandclover
Summary: In which Lisa lives on. In which there is an endless road in front of her and an endless chorus of summer cicadas. In which she meets somebody who says he wants to hear her pale yellow voice two months after she lost Twelve and her desire to speak. (slight AU, b/c of altered ending)
1. Lost And Found

"Cicadas"

**Chapter 1: "Lost and Found" **

When she closes her eyes, she returns to him.

She returns to the world ending, over and over again. She closes her eyes and she sees the stream of lights blinking past her as Twelve's motorcycle zooms down the highway. She listens to the din of the police sirens fading into nothing. In that space, in that infinite tunnel of time and wind and the dim glow of the city lights, there is only the two of them. Just their heat. Just their breathing and the sound of their laughter echoing and the feeling of fullness. Of being full of life, of being full of mournful joy, as if she was the end and he was the beginning and now that they were together they never needed another story other than their own ever again.

Twelve is right in front of her now and that is all she needs. The summer is gone along with all of her hurt. There is only wind and the sound of his laughter. His laughter is real and the tighter she holds on the more he laughs.

_"Are you going to destroy it?" _when she hears her own voice, it sounds foreign to her. Suddenly she is aware that she is watching the scene pan out as if she was behind a thin film. She is floating away from the motorcycle and her feet have found the ground behind it. She tries to grab at the two in front of her but they pass through her hands like ghosts.

"_Hmm?" _his voice finds its way to her and it breaks her heart, slowly.

_"Are you going to destroy the whole world?" _again the stranger speaks and Lisa realizes the world is spinning. The boy and the girl on the motorcycle are leaving her behind on the road and the darkness she thought she left behind begins to roar. She cannot say a word. She stays only paralyzed as the darkness grows heavier and heavier on her back and the sound of Twelve's laughter grows more distant.

As the last of the light disappears and the highway lights recede into the distance, Lisa allows the darkness to have her. She falls onto her knees and closes her eyes. When she does she hears a voice, even stranger than her own. It is a whisper at first, but it gets louder and louder even when she tries to shake it off. She didn't want the voice with its buzzing persistence, she wanted silence and darkness..to go to where Twelve was waiting for her.

But the voice only gets louder.

_"…isa." _

_"Lisa." _

_"_LISA!_" _

Lisa's eyes flew open. Her vision is blurry at first, but slowly, she remembers where she is. The morning sun has poured itself all over her bed and it hurts to look at it but this has been her reality for months now.

The starched white sheets. An egg-shell colored popcorn ceiling. The sound of the IV drip and the buzz of cicadas outside her windows.

This was her father's house and the voice that broke the silence of her dream was..

Hana. Her half-sister. An eight year old girl with black hair, light brown eyes.

Hana looked at Lisa impatiently. "Lisa, get up! It's already 9 am and you said you'd take me to the amusement park today!"

When Lisa made no sound, Hana stamped her foot and pouted.

"You promised Lisa. It's the first day the park has been open since the Oedipus Bombing! I want to ride on the big rollercoaster. The biggest one! The one that falls from really, really high up!"

Lisa still said nothing. She only looked at the popcorn ceiling and counted silently in her head. This was her morning ritual. The doctor said she could count whenever she felt scared.

_One. _She only counted the pieces that stood out more prominently from the rest.

_Two_. Otherwise, she'd be counting forever.

_Three. Four. _

Next to her, Hana began to throw a tantrum. But Lisa couldn't hear her.

"Lisa!" she said. "No one else will take me, Dad's too busy and Peter has school!"

_Five. _Lisa paused for a second, and the image of black nail polish flashed in her head briefly. _Six. Seven. Eight._

"DAD! Lisa won't get up!" helplessly, Hana flopped onto the bed.

_Nine. _The sound of music flooded her ears. Music from a cold land. Cold eyes. Von. The symphony of hope and the sound of two bodies dropping to the ground as if it was part of the score.

_Nine. Nine. Nine. _She could not unhear the sound of him.

"DAD!" The door opened and Hana stood back up. An elderly man, one with hair and eyes the same shade as Lisa's, walked in.

"Hana," he said calmly. "What is the matter?"

"Lisa won't take me to the park even though she said she would."

The man was surprised. "Lisa _said _she would?"

Hana hesitated. "Well, she didn't really _say _she would, just when I talked about it she smiled! After two months, she smiled, Dad!"

He paused and rubbed his chin. "Well, that _is _something."

He looked at his daughter kindly, even though Lisa herself was still looking attentively at the ceiling. Every morning since she collapsed and was brought home by Detective Shibazaki, it's been the same. No matter what anybody says, his daughter remains silent and unresponsive. But as a doctor, he knew that the shock needed time to pass out of her system.

_Nine. Nine. What came after nine? _

"Lisa, how about it? Want to go to the amusement part today?"

Lisa said nothing. She was trying to remember what came after nine.

Dr. Mishima turned to Hana, who was waiting expectantly. "It's a plan then. We'll go to the park as a family today."

Hana pouted. "With Peter too?"

He pretended to think about it. "No, Peter has prep classes today. We'll go with just the three of us."

Hana laughed out of delight. "I'll go get ready!"

Dr. Mishima chuckled and got up. "We'll leave at ten."

_Ten. _Lisa turned to look at her father suddenly, but along with Hana he had already gone.

** xxx**

"It's pretty cold today, don't you think?"

"You're a freak, Sky. It's one of the hottest days of the year so we're lucking we got dismissed early. It is really weird though, this heat. It's gonna be fall soon."

"You're right Peter. It's like your bike tires are gonna melt on the cement, so you better hurry and get home before they do!"

Sky laughed and broke into a run ahead of Peter.

"W-Wait! Come back here! How do you think that you're gonna get in the house without me?"

Sky laughed at Peter struggling to push his bike uphill after him, "I dunno! Maybe I'll climb and break a window? Or maybe I'll ask Lisa to open the door? Maybe she'll finally talk then?"

Peter stopped.

"That's not funny, Sky," he said, his tone suddenly serious.

Sensing his friend's apprehension, Sky stopped and looked back at Peter.

"Hey, hey. I was kidding. Kidding. No hard feelings, I know your family is going through a lot right now trying to get Lisa better."

Panting, Peter caught up with Sky at the top of the hill. He doubled over, his hands on his knees as he regained his breath. At times like these, he regretted living in his neighborhood, a hilly suburb that overlooked Tokyo in the near distance. Every afternoon after school, he and Sky would have to climb the tallest hill in the neighborhood, where the Mishima family lived and ran their clinic.

"Don't make jokes like that anymore. Okay?" he said.

Sky smiled widely and put his hands up in mock surrender. "Got it, captain," he said.

"Good."

Peter glanced up at him. And looked again in confusion.

For a second in the heat wave, Sky seemed to disappear into the cerulean blue behind him. It felt for a second like if he just closed his eyes for a few seconds longer than necessary, when he opened them, his friend would be gone as if he had never been there at all…as if he was nothing more than dissolved sunlight.

"Peter?"

Peter rubbed his eyes tiredly.

"You okay? You need help taking your bike back the rest of the way?"

He blinked, and Sky's concerned face came back into view. His friend extended a hand out to him.

_What was he thinking? That Sky would disappear? _

"I'm fine," he said as he pushed away Sky's hand.

They were approaching his house, a typical gray two story home with a gate out front and a mailbox lettered with their family name.

"Whatever happened to your bike anyway?" Peter asked.

Sky smiled.

"I sold it."

"What?! Why? How are you gonna get around?"

"I needed the money for something. And I think I'll be fine getting around without it."

Peter frowned as he parked his bike and then unlocked the gate. "I hope you don't think I'm gonna give you rides from now on."

"Aw, I can't even ride on the back?" Sky joked.

"No, not even if you were a cute girl," replied Peter.

The two took off their shoes in the foyer and walked into the living room.

"How cruel. Not even if I looked like — "

Sky stopped half way when he noticed Peter's silence.

Peter's face, usually an impasse, had softened.

"Lisa," he said.

The owner of the name, who sat at in a wheel chair at the dinner table next to Hana, looked up. She didn't say anything but she offered a slight nod.

"Peter!" Hana jumped off her chair. "Dad said you weren't going to be home today because of prep classes."

He ignored Hana's question. "Why is Lisa out of her room today? Is she going somewhere?"

For two months now since Lisa had come into their home, she had stayed in her room and done nothing more than look at the ceiling or outside the window.

"I don't want to tell you," said Hana. "You're not even supposed to be home today."

Sky looked at Peter's discomfort and replied for him.

"Oh come on, Hana. Not even for me?" he teased.

"Welll," said Hana.

"We're going to the amusement park." Dr. Mishima cut in as he walked into the room.

Sky greeted him with a slight bow. "Good afternoon, Dr. Mishima!"

"The amusement park?" Peter asked with trepidation.

"Yes, Peter. As a family."

"Is Lisa ready for that?" he said.

The silence grew tense as Dr. Mishima and Peter looked at each other, one calmly and the other suspicion.

Peter, although it had already been a decade, did not trust his adoptive father. Strangely enough, he was most attached to Lisa, who moved in around two months ago. When he watched Lisa stare outside, it looked like she was looking for something but couldn't quite find it. It reminded him of himself.

But when he looked at Dr. Mishima, as he did in that moment, he found only a stranger.

What was Lisa looking for? What was he? Something that his "father" already found?

Suddenly, a shout broke the silence. "The AMUSEMENT PARK! Sounds like a fun trip."

Sky clapped his hands together. "I've never been to the one in Tokyo, and god knows that this past summer ruined all my plans to go."

He walked past the surprised Dr. Mishima and Peter to Lisa. He put his hands on the handles of her wheelchair.

"I think we're going to have loads of fun. Isn't that right Lisa?"

They all looked at him warily. He stood in the bright window with his hands on Lisa's wheelchair, their shadows looming out together on the floor in front of them.

"Now then, why don't we get going?"


	2. Cantaloupe

**Chapter 2: "Cantaloupe" **

The sound of the cicadas were deafening. Twilight was beginning to fall, and people were trickling out of the park. Above them, the sky was painted pale purple. Closer to the horizon, it blazed with the last light of the sun.

"Don't you think the color of the sun setting looks a little bit like a the inside of a cantaloupe?," asked Sky.

"You always say the strangest things, Sky." Peter sighed and crossed his legs on the grass. They had gone to the amusement park, just him, Hana, and Lisa. It had been one of Tokyo's strongest heat waves, but they survived the hot day, somehow. They had gone on a couple of rides, but with Lisa in a wheelchair someone always had to sit out. But now they all just sat on a hill of grass just outside the park, watching the sunset.

Sky laughed. "The world is a strange place. I just happen to point it out."

"Maybe you should start writing poetry," he retorted. "Or become a stand up comic."

"I think it looks like an eggshell kind of color." said Hana suddenly.

Peter looked at her in surprise. It was unlike her to say something like that.

"Talking about eggs, I'm hungry," said Hana. "I want something sweet."

Peter looked around. "I think we'll have to head back into the park to get something to eat," he sighed. "Can you wait a little bit? Until we get home?"

Hana frowned, beginning to whine. "I want something sweet. Right now."

Peter shut his eyes and let himself fall back on the grass. _Of course. Hana doesn't wait for people. _

He waited for her to throw a tantrum.

"Peter?" To his surprise, it was Sky's voice he heard next and not Hana's.

"Come on, Peter. Hana's been on her best behavior today. Maybe we should get crepes, since I heard that the crepes here are delicious."

When Peter didn't budge, Sky reached into his pocket.

"Please? My treat."

Finally, Hana joined in. "Please, please Peter? Sky is being so nice today and it's his first time here too!"

"And maybe my last," he added. "Come on, dude."

Hana looked at him curiously. "Last? What do you mean?"

Sky smiled. "I already told Peter, but I might be moving this year. I'm going to leave Tokyo for college, or at least that's what my parents want."

"Peter! We have to get crepes now, please!"

Sky waited expectantly.

Peter sighed as he sat back up. "OK. Fine. And you put that money away, I'll treat you. Since it's your _last _time and all."

He glared at Sky, who only offered him a grin.

Hana cheered as Peter got up.

"Get me something with strawberries on it, okay?" Sky called out as the two walked off.

"Yeah, yeah." said Peter.

Sky watched them walk towards the park for a bit before turning to Lisa in her wheelchair.

She hadn't looked at anybody or responded to anything after she left the house. She just sat and looked at the sky.

"Do you think it's that pretty?"

No response. _Of course. _

"I mean I'm flattered. I mean the fact that I'm sure so many people look at the sky and how people think that's what I'm named for and all."

Lisa said nothing. In her head she could only think of the sky on that one night — the night when everything glowed and she held his hand in hers.

"Did you know I'm not actually Japanese? I'm actually an American citizen," said Sky, playing with the grass. "I know, it surprised me too when I found out. Not that it really matters, this is all ancient history, really. It just makes the name less cool you know? I heard there are tons of babies in the US named Sky."

He pulled out a tuft of grass and dirt. "And that's booring."

"The truth is, Lisa, is that everything is boring. My name, the cantaloupe sky, it was all boring for almost 9 years now. Until a few months ago, that is."

Lisa still said nothing. She began to count the stars she could see, which began to appear dimly in the distance. _One. Two. _

Sky continued. "Do you know why it wasn't boring anymore?"

_Three. Four._

"Because of you."

_"_I smile a lot, you know. I learned it from someone really early on. It still doesn't feel real sometimes. But everyone likes me better when I do it."

_Five. _

Lisa moved quickly onto the next number before she could think of black nails again.

_Six. _

_Seven._

_Eight. _

Her breath quickened, preparing to move onto the next number — the shadow that's loomed over her for months now.

"I think that if I didn't learn to smile from Twelve, I'd be a lot more like Nine."

Lisa's breath caught in her throat.

For the first time since leaving the house, she turned to look at Sky.

She met him two months ago, but she was taking him in for the first time now. He was slender and sat cross legged, his head thrown back. His hair was a dark brown, and it was slightly unkept.

His hands were green from the grass and the dirt, but he lifted a single finger to his mouth and smiled.

"Don't tell anyone, okay, Lisa? I trust you," he said, looking at her. "Do you know what the Japanese kanji for ten looks like?"

"They were pretty clever huh? Those people."

Lisa looked at him with disbelieving eyes.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Lisa Mishima. You know me as Sky, but you can also call me Ten. I trust you'll make an excellent accomplice."


	3. The Return

**Chapter 3: "The Return" **

His laughter brought her back to her senses.

For a second after he had introduced himself, everything from the highway to the ferris wheel to the rooftop apartment and and the hot summer afternoon they spent playing ball flashed through her head. Black flickered into her vision and her heart creaked under the weight of her memories.

_This was too soon. _

"Accomplice…" Ten stopped laughing and addressed Lisa seriously. "Who am I kidding. There's nothing that needs to be done anymore. Those two. Or should I say three? Having the fun all to themselves. And here I've been. Posing as a school boy for years now."

"I guess I should be glad. I guess all I need to do now is wait to die. At least the others had something to do to pass the time."

Lisa said nothing. She just stared at Ten, as if she was unsure he existed. _Was he a ghost? Would she always be trapped in this nightmare? _

"I know, it must be weird. I kind of look like him huh? _Twelve." _

She snapped back at the sound of someone saying Twelve's name again out loud, her wheelchair tipping slightly.

Ten got up and grabbed it before she could fall. "Woah there, calm down. Don't want Peter getting angry at me or anything."

He grinned. "At least, not so soon."

He sat back down and looked at her.

"I don't have a lot of time left, you know," he said. "I'm not here to scare you or hurt you but if you're going to be both of those things on your own accord, I guess I can't do anything about it."

Lisa gripped her hands into fists.

"I just want to know how you could have mattered to them," Ten looked up again at the sky. "How does a person matter to two kids who didn't care about anything? Who knew they were going to die?" The sky had turned into a dark azure. Behind the two of them, Lisa saw the ferris wheel slowly begin to light up.

_This was too soon. It was like yesterday, it was just yesterday did she fall in love with Twelve. Did he catch her. Did he come for her. Did he grip her face in his hands and tell her everything was going to be all right. And then all too soon, he was dead in the dirt. All of that light he carried around in him — the only person to have ever thanked her for needing him — was gone. Extinguished. _

"Lisa do you hear me?" Ten pleaded with her as the sky grew darker and he could no longer see her clearly. "I need you. I need you to take me back."

"Please. You're the only person who's ever loved one of us. I don't know why I'm here. At least Nine and Twelve gave themselves a purpose. But all I am is waiting. All I have is so much want. I'm up to my chest in it. I want to know if the cantaloupe sky is sweet."

He waited for her to say something, before his voice turned threatening.

"I just want you to know. Smiling isn't the only thing I learned from Twelve. I've attached a bomb to the side of your wheel chair. You've been through this. You could die or you can become my accomplice."

In the wake of his announcement, there was only the wind. The ferris wheel lights — green, blue, purple, then green again, reflected themselves faintly on the shaking leaves of the trees around them.

Then he heard the rustle of her moving.

"Lisa?"

Gingerly, Lisa began to get up from her wheelchair and attempted to walk towards Ten.

She stumbled and fell onto the ground, causing him to rush over to her. But before he could help her up, he saw a faint glimmer on Lisa's face.

In the dark, tears found their way down her cheeks.

Then, he heard it.

The pale yellow voice.

It broke the silence like a ray of soft light.

"Yes. I want to live."


End file.
